


The Messenger of the Covenant (DVD Commentary Track 1)

by conceptofzero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 17:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7473630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snowman watches Vriska watching the Black Queen and provides a running commentary despite the substandard equipment she has to work with. Her kingdom for a 1.6180:1 ratio and a knife with which to slide into the ribs of everyone who did her wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Messenger of the Covenant (DVD Commentary Track 1)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xngurevar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xngurevar/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Messenger of the Covenant](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7003459) by [xngurevar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xngurevar/pseuds/xngurevar). 



Who ever thought the 1:1 aspect ratio was acceptable or appropriate? Snowman finds herself quietly disgusted as she looks out over the wall of screens in front of her, the once grand aspect ratios she was accustomed to reduced to ugly squares that showed very little. All the shots were pulled in too close. All the subjects were framed like ID photos, showing only an up close of the face and nothing of the area surrounding them. 

She misses her fenestrated walls. Snowman misses the golden ratio that perfect captured the motion and movement of those she spoke to. How many times had she been witness to some report from the field, her eyes focuses on the proud carapacian delivering their report fully within the context of their environment? 

Here, the Parcel Matron delivering her reports, the busy bustle of the Glorious Mail Sorting Facility filling the frame with a thousand different figures reading and stamping and packing and sorting and filling bags meant to be carried to the far realms? 

There, the Zealous Chronicler reading aloud gathered information from the Grand Archives and through the windows, the gentle endless quiet and the stacked shelves reaching up and up, and those small dark bodies climbing to platforms and ladders as they climbed and searched for what information was more necessary. 

Here, Jack Noir siting at this desk, fists squeezes tight, face split with rage as he bore another lecture from her for his gross incompetence, those stacks of tickets growing higher and higher around him like the towers outside, threatening to block her view and box him into a prison of his own making. 

All of them, beautiful. All of them, perfectly framed and shot. 

If Snowman had known one day that she would find herself sitting here, watching the playback of her life as narrated by these squirming angsty grubs, she would have insisted that the terminals be torn out and replaced with a singular fenestrated wall. They could set the terminal to cycle through them, channels one through twelve, with perfect sound and the ability to record and export footage. Perhaps in the ability to record commentary in sound rather than text. If she had known-

If she had truly known though, she would have ripped Jack Noir’s head from his shoulders, hollowed it out, and used his shell as an ashtray. 

So here she is, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, watching Vriska stumble her way through what was one of the grandest moments of her life. Oh, how she had prepared herself for this. If she was to be exiled, it would not be on their terms. She would not let herself be marched out out to be seen by billions of eyes, so her enemies could take a gleeful delight in her humiliation and record every last second of her striding across the docks towards her exile ship. No, she had decided to reduce it all to ashes and to leave by battleship, straight through the portals and into the vast and uncharged unknown, trading her firekissed crown for the endless wastelands. 

It had felt grand at the time. Now she watches her life play out on the small screens and she sighs, hating how it looks. The camera is always so tightly pulled in on that grey smirking face. If it just backed off somewhat, if it only captured how this was meant to be! 

The blue grubchild flutters her way towards the royal cedars. They had been so grand to see, rising up, smelling of camphor so strongly that all within miles could find their way towards them with closed eyes. She smells nothing but sand and oil and the ugly stink of some dead thing that found its way into here, curled up, and died long ago. The framing makes them look squat and ugly, sad instead of resplendent. Oh how she hates these terminals. 

Snowman places her fingers on the keys. _Careful._ she types _This is an important moment. Please try not to block the shot._

There is no sound, but Vriska holds up a hand, forming an O with her thumb and forefinger, the rest of her fleshy segments simply hanging aimlessly around it. This means nothing, only than that Vriska has heard her. She may behave. She may not. 

Vriska lands. The shot remains on her face, no matter how Snowman does her best to direct the camera away. She wants to see herself as she was. Snowman wants to see how she looked on the throne. Even if this shot is a weak imitation, even if she looks as stubby and silent as the trees, she wishes to see-

The grub mouths words that Snowman knows. Her teeth all set on edge. Even without noise, she knows the motion of those lips: your ex-majesty. She is not wrong, as she was no longer the Black Queen in that moment, though she is always the Black Queen, for eternity and forever, through all the names she wears overtop of herself, she is always the Black Queen. 

In the tight shot, the flutter of wings stops and for a moment, though her head takes up the bulk of it, Snowman sees the trees through Vriska’s wings, those beautiful needles stirred by the speed, now falling like a gentle green rain through the transparent film of flight. If only it was zoomed out. She fiddles with the controls and manages to get the shot to relax, to pull back-

There! Ah, there. Not perfect, never perfect on a 1:1 ratio, but better. Tolerable. Vriska silently shouts to a once-Queen-of-Derse. They trade barbs she can only half remember now. Was it about her lusus? It must have been. She misses her even now, that vast and hungry intelligence. How many long nights has they spent with their minds entwined, both their faces turned towards the stars? She had known her as intimately as she had known herself (and indeed, sometimes, she hardly remembered if she was the one with two legs or the one with eight, the one with a crown or the one with silk, the one with a child and the one without). 

Now Snowman is alone, her mind forever unaccompanied by another, trapped in this empty place, watching the glory that once was hers play out on an unsightly screen with incompetent camera work. 

_We hated you very much._ She says what was not said the first time around. Then, she held their connection over her head, used it as a hook that could not catch the dancing, grinning grub in front of her. Now, she has no hooks left and nothing to bait, so she gives willingly what she held in reserve before. _You brought us flesh. You kept us company. We would have eaten you, and we were relieved when we did not have to._

She pushes in. The screen is inadequate and it fuzzes. The close-up fails to properly catch the way those eight pupils flare and contract. Damn these engineers and damn their shoddy work! Her kingdom for a 1.6180:1 ratio and a knife with which to slide into the ribs of everyone who did her wrong. 

Snowman settles for this terminal and her whip. Compromise is key in this world, where she may no longer be a tyrant and dictate her whims and wants. She settles for the lash and the image of Vriska framed by the orange fires happening just off screen. Snowman wishes she could have seen herself for a moment, flicking the cigarette forward. It had all burned so beautifully. She must have been bold and magnificent, royal in a way that no removal of title would ever rip from her hands. Oh, she must have been a sight to behold. 

The camera catches the way Vriska burns. The close shot sees every moment as her wings catch fire and burn quickly, as if they were made of the cheapest, thinnest plastics. They melt. Then the flames creep up her clothes and they grasp onto her hair, burning hot enough to surround her face in a halo of destruction. Her flesh bubbles and boils but her eyes remain forward, locked onto the once-queen. Or perhaps, perhaps locked onto Snowman. Vriska looks directly at her, even as her right eye starts to cook in its socket. 

_Brave girl. I should have spit in your face. Had I understood then what I understand now, I would have given you the open hate you craved._ She types easily, her fingers sliding over the keys and deftly sending the message to be understood. Snowman hadn’t known then, but she does now, and she holds a dark black coal in her heart for Vriska. Sweet child. Poor doomed grub. She takes a great deal of satisfaction in watching her burn, in watching her eyes drip from her sockets and her skull come shining through, until she is nothing but ash and bone. 

There is no sound but she knows the endless humming of a battleship must be just overhead. Vriska’s body changes and warps, and life returns to it. Flesh swells and her eyes burst forward like flowers in stop motions, and the happy look returns to her face. She shines with colours and the aspect ratio is ruining this utterly. Snowman cannot dial back far enough to see it properly happen, so she’s left with just the most basic remains of it, just slivers of what-is-and-what-might-be-and-what-will-be. 

_Spin around._ She demands and gets a thumbs down from Vriska. Instead, she flies forward, and drags Snowman with her. Where is she going? The trees are skeletons now, smouldering remains that scrape at the skies and accomplish nothing. How had they smelt at the end? Like formaldehyde, thick and black on the tongue, cancerous and deadly. 

Two hands raise up and there, for a second, she sees her crown again. It must burn the girl’s hands as she holds it in front of her face, but… there it is. Snowman’s crown. 

Even on this pathetic machinery, even in this inadequate ratio, even without sound, she finds herself moved. A moment. A perfect moment. A beautiful shot. Her crown, red and blackened, melting the fingers of the grub girl, those eyes staring through the bars of it to look at Snowman. 

_A perfect shot. We might get somewhere yet._ She declares. 

Vriska casts the crown aside. Her fingers point up, the flesh black and grey and the bone so white beneath. To the sky, she points, and Snowman settles back again in that chair. 

_Go on._ She commands. Vriska flies up and into the smoky sky, off to do whatever mischief that strikes her fancy. But this is beyond her interest now. Her teenage squabbles are beyond the scope of Snowman’s commentary.

Snowman hits the toggle and switches over to Terezi. She wishes she had the fenestrated wall for this. Jack Noir’s betrayal begins and she aches to know that she will not see it delivered in the proper formatting, that she will not watch his face as it twists in agony when the betrayal becomes clear. 

But perhaps, just perhaps, there is some value in this format as well. Necessity is the mother of invention. So she makes herself familiar with her tools and she prepares herself to deliver a masterpiece, even if she must do so with primitive tools under dire circumstances.


End file.
